ASP.NET 4 Unleashed

Understanding the VirtualPathProvider Class

The VirtualPathProvider class is a MustInherit (abstract) class. It contains the following methods, which you can override:

• CombineVirtualPaths ()—Returns a combined path from two paths.

• DirectoryExists()— Returns true when a directory exists.

• FileExists()— Returns true when a file exists.

• GetCacheDependency()— Returns a cache dependency object that indicates when a file has been changed.

• GetCacheKey()— Returns the key used by the cache dependency.

• GetDirectory()— Returns a VirtualDirectory.

• GetFile()— Returns a VirtualFile.

• GetFileHash()— Returns a hash of the files used by the cache dependency.

• OpenFile()— Returns the contents of a file.

Typically, you override the FileExists()